Right Here: Nowhere

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What is this? Developers Duangle explain: “NOWHERE (formerly known by its working title name “Project Ginshu”) is an independently produced surreal sandbox exploration game we are building. It will feature elements of strategy, construction, farming, puzzling and adventure set in a post-singularian universe. Witness the unraveling of a visual acid trip through an impossible space, filled with exotic shapes, geometric patterns and appropriate soundscapes, cocooned by the people who brought you Masagin.”

“Nowhere is a procedural single player, open world, sandbox game; You incarnate as a floating sentient orb, a machine-being in a post-singularity society of vaguely self-conscious mechanical entities; for lack of a better word, I call them drones. You live the full life of that one drone in this closed ecosystem, which is represented as a giant otherworldly colony suspended in space. When you die, you reincarnate, and you live the next life, until all lives are played out. The lives you live are distributed across the equivalent of a drone’s lifespan – randomly. Occasionally you meet a former self of yours, younger and older. You go back and forth in time and as every member of that society, you shape what you are as a collective. As the game progresses, you and the system become one.

“Nowhere has no fixed plot line, but provides emergent goals. The player creates his own narrative. The concept is highly AI dependent. It is a “civic” sandbox game. You can go with the flow of society, obstruct it, destroy it or mold it into something else. You are going to experience the system from both sides: conservative and progressive, rich and poor, creator and inhabitant. You will pass laws and be forced to live under them. You will instigate against yourself, become a victim of your own indifference, or enjoy the rule of your state-building foresight. The game can reach one of six extreme outcomes, of which each one is honored as a unique ending to your karmic ascension.”

OK. They also point out that Ginshu is an anagram of Shulgin. You know, in case you’d missed what they did there.

“I estimate the first complete beta to be delivered in 2014, and the final game to be released in 2015. There’s still an awful lot to do.”

I can see that! But it’s earlyish 2013, so I’ll be content to keep an eye on this (hopefully through RPS coverage~) and if it turns out even half as interesting as it sounds and looks, I’ll probably buy in before 2015. Oh, and they’re saying they can complete it without the crowdfunding/alpha purchases, they’re just for people who really want to take a look at the early stages and/or give the developers money.

It starts with a thought that perhaps someone should make an MMO in Nihei’s Blame! universe. This inevitably leads to a realization that most of Killy’s travels where of him journeying alone through the impossible vastness of the City. But then it dawns to me that many play MMOs just like this; alone, broken by brief encounters with another intelligence. Then, perhaps, someone more clever than I might be able to make something out of that. One can always hope.

That sounds great, I love the idea of them taking that “cooperate by onesself” idea and applying it to more subtle AI routines. It almost reminds me of spy party, although backwards, in that the player and the AIs will probably have to interface with the same kind of system to seem plausible, and the game will have to do some kind of rpg-esque paragon/renegade psychometrics on each of your playthroughs in order to decide how each of those drones behaves and reacts to deviations from their original movements and situations.

Hi there, this is Leonard from Duangle. Well done everyone ;) We got slashdotted, which doesn’t mean much considering that we hiked Google App Engine for free – until now. I’m working hard on getting the site back up.

UPDATE: Wow, who knew we had credit cards? Problem solved, site back up.